State Sen. John Whitmire's comments about whether Texas prison inmates should be allowed to live in air-conditioned facilities would seem to suggest that he's auditioning for a remake of the classic "Cool Hand Luke." Whitmire would be Captain, the sadistic prison warden obsessed with breaking the likeable rebel, Luke Jackson, played by Paul Newman.

"We need to have a grown-up discussion of what's practical and reasonable and what's politically acceptable," said the Houston Democrat, who's both dean of the Senate and the long-serving chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. "But I can tell you, the people of Texas don't want air-conditioned prisons, and there's a lot of other things on my list above the heat. It's hot in Texas, and a lot of Texans who are not in prison don't have air conditioning."

Maybe what we have is a failure to communicate, but Whitmire's comments don't sound like the beginnings of a grown-up discussion. They sound more like political posturing.

Certainly, no one is interested in coddling prisoners, but there are practical reasons to cool things off a bit during the Texas hot summers. For one thing, inmates are just that, inmates. They can't open a window or go outside to catch a cool breeze. As a new report by the University of Texas School of Law's Human Rights Clinic concluded, high temperatures inside the state's prisons is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment.

At least 14 Texas inmates have died because of exposure to extreme heat since 2007, prison reports and court filings show.

In addition, prisoners aren't the only ones in the prison system having to live with the stifling heat. Lance Lowry, president of a Huntsville union that represents some of the state's more than 26,000 correctional officers, told the Chronicle's Mike Ward that prison employees increasingly fall victim to overheated conditions. He said the heat makes it difficult to hire and retain guards. It's not hard to see why.

What's likely to happen - and this would get the Captain (er, Whitmire) off the hook - is that the federal courts will step in and order changes, just as they did when the state resisted reforms in the landmark Ruiz prison rights case four decades ago. A court likely would note, in addition to the danger of extreme heat on the general prison population, that inmates taking heat-sensitive drugs, such as psychotropic medications for mental health patients, are particularly at risk when temperatures soar. Doctors say the drugs can cause dangerous side effects, possibly even death, when patients become overheated.

The prison system's medical director told the Chronicle that about 25,000 of the state's 150,000 inmates have mental health issues. Nearly 80 percent of those are taking heat-sensitive drugs, although prison officials say they are closely monitored by doctors.

We know, as does Whitmire, that many Texans expect their prisons to be houses of punishment, not penitentiaries where some rehabilitation might occur. They believe that life in an un-air conditioned facility during a hot Texas summer is merely part of the punishment an inmate should expect. Forget air conditioning; anyone who ends up in prison should be grateful he or she has a mattress to sleep on.

That's not how a humane society works. Whitmire, who has been a leader over the years on any number of criminal justice issues, needs to take the lead on this issue, as well. Sometimes a public official has to do the right thing, regardless of popular opinion.